Help:Getting around
Some sections of this page need a rewrite following changes to the overall design of wikia wiki Browsing the Sustainable Community Action wiki With several hundred pages or articles in the wiki it helps to know how to get around easily. This is useful for just exploring the wiki but is also particularly helpful when creating new content. The more you are aware of what's already here the better you can integrate your new content. It's very good (although by no means essential when starting an article) to integrate new content with lots of internal links. This increases the cohesiveness of the wiki and helps keep up a high standard of having lots and varied ways of navigating the wiki. There are a variety of ways into the wiki, and ways to get around and explore further. There aren't any especially right and wrong ways, just whatever people find themselves comfortable with. Read this article for a summary and overview of ways of getting around. Please remember this is only an introduction and signposting to further sources of more detailed and more comprehensive help. Internal links Left hand column The left hand column appears on most SCA wiki pages, and provides links to some of the main pages on the wiki, for example the Main Page and the Community Portal. Main sections of the wiki A broad general structure is provided by half a dozen main kinds of information, these are listed in What's here part of the Main Page and under Finding your way around this wiki in the Community Portal. This latter listing also points to some of the main sub-sections or main articles or start points within the main sections. Search To search for an article on a given subject within Sustainable Community Action use the search box within the left hand column. (Go takes you directly to a named page rather than listing search results) Categories This is a much more flexible way of organising content than simple lists or a tree-type structure. Explore categories by clicking on the category links at the bottom of pages which have been categorised. :Here's an example: The article Climate change information by local councils in England is in the Category:Climate change which itself is a subcategory in the Category:Sustpedia. :Categories can have one level of sub-categories. Ideally when (or soon after) each article is created it is put into at least one category, and categories themselves are included in at least one (broader / higher level) category. The top level category is category:Browse. There's a broad match up between the way categories are organised and the main sections of the wiki (which were set up before the category system was introduced to this wiki). There isn't a need to be too fussy about matching up exactly (or indeed concentrating on only one way of organising the wiki content) as (remember) the wiki is constantly evolving. Top back links On some pages there are a few links at the top of a page or article which provide quick means of getting back to other articles that someone using the wiki may have come from. End of page quick links On some pages there are quick links to some of the main broad sections or subsections of the wiki. Internal links within text In most articles there may be several internal links to other pages within the text of an article. For example an article that mentions climate change can link to the article with that title, like this climate change. Special pages There are a number of special pages which can help you get around or get an overview of what's here. Special pages can be accessed via the laft hand menu in the toolbox. You might want to explore some of these, for example gives an alphabetical listing of all articles in the main article namespace. Namespaces Namespaces are particular parts of the wiki that group together similar types of pages. Click on the blue button to the right of the namespace box to view the types of namespaces. Don't worry if all this sounds a little confusing at first. Remember this is only a brief overview of ways of getting around. Things like namespaces will make more sense as you gain more experience of using the wiki. Or if you want to find out more see wikia:Help:Special Cityscape If the Sustainable Communtiy Action wiki is viewed as a virtual city (or village), Cityscape references, (or analogies) just give an idea of what sort of place it might be from people's understanding of real cities (or villages). For example the Community Portal is a bit like a Central Square, with Tourist Info, Volunteer Bureau, etc. Using the Village analogy we have for example a Village cinema, Village Green, Village pump, and Tea rooms. See also wikia:Wikia analogies Interwiki links Sustainable Community Action is part of a much larger project called Wikia. Within the Sustainable Community Action wiki, our WikiNode page provides an overview of relationships between SCA and other Wikia. On the central wikicity Society Gardens lists some other wikicities about reasonably serious topics and with some interest in mutual support and encouragement. There are also many links to relevant Wikipedia articles thoughout the SCA wiki, and some links to other similar Projects, such as the Commons, Wikinews, etc. - see for example the useful links section of the Community Portal External links External links to other wiki SCA's WikiNode page also shows relationships to other wiki (outside of the Wikia community) on similar or relevant subjects. External links to other websites There's a huge number of these within (usually towards the end of) individual SCA wiki articles, for example topic articles within the Local Sustainability Ideas Bank or Projects listings. Getting around